White Paper Pundit

About the Sponsor: Intelliseek (a division of Nielsen BuzzMetrics) creates real-time marketing intelligence from the vast amounts and types of consumer-created content on the Internet and in company feedback.

White Paper Title: Consumer-Generated Media 101: Word-of-Mouth in the Age of the Web-Fortified Consumer

Size: 15 Pages

The Review: (Ratings are scored from 1 to 10)

Overview: This white paper tackles the issue of word of mouth advertising on the web, a topic that has as much buzz in advertising circles as the medium itself. The paper uses a comfortable “conversational” style, a healthy dose of well illustrated and captioned graphics, analogies, and professional formatting to deliver their message. While the paper is on the outer edge in its overall size, it makes up for this limitation by combining several elements that draw the reader into its content, and make reading it pleasurable. This is an excellent example that any professional marketing writer should use as a model in crafting their white papers.

First Glance/Appearance: At first glance the reader notices that this paper is full of excellent concept graphics, business charts, tables, and visual elements. In fact there is almost one on every page. This aids in reader comprehension. In addition, the Executive Summary (ES) uses an interesting large block text style in the leading paragraph, an innovative first message concept. Unfortunately, I prefer an ES that encapsulates the entire paper in one page, and this one is another form that doesn’t provide enough information for the short attention span executive reader. Rating: 9.

Titles/Headings: Both the main title, sub-title and section headings clearly articulate what to expect. This concept is extended to the headings on each of the illustrations and graphics which attract reader attention. Many of the headings ask questions, another element that makes the reader yearn to read the section below it. Rating: 10.

Flow: Flow on this paper is good, providing a considerable amount of space to educating the reader to current industry issues before providing marketing guidance later in the paper. The only area where the flow stops is at the end, with the absence of a concluding summary. The paper ends with three case studies of industries that can benefit from online word-of-mouth advertising. I would have preferred a formal closure to the paper with some bottom-line take-away points. This is one of the elements that executives read in addition to the ES, and its absence leaves the reader hanging at the end. Rating: 8.

Formatting: Text formatting is very good. While I find two-column formats to be busy for most readers, the use of this format in the paper does work. The text conveys a very professional look and feel, using bold section headers and sub-heads to attract attention. I especially like the way that tables are formatted and bullet lists are highlighted. The use of arrows in one section instead of the more traditional circular bullet gives the paper a very professional and classy appearance. Rating: 10.

Graphics: The use of graphics is excellent and one area where this paper really shines. Besides the number of graphics, each one has a clear heading, uses a well written and clearly understood caption, and goes out of their way to describe what is going on with each illustration or chart. There are also screen shots of video and web page examples. If the reader saw nothing else besides the graphics (which many executives will certainly do), they will get enough information to either read the rest of the paper or pass it along to another decision maker within the organization. Rating: 10.

Size: The size of this paper is 15 pages, which is on the very outside edge of what most executives can handle in one reading. While it may be a lot, the number of quality elements in the paper minimize the boredom that would normally occur if this paper had been a text-only document. Obviously the large number of graphics has extended the paper’s size, and this minimizes the impact that would normally occur with a more traditional paper of this size. Rating: 9.

Comprehension: The question in this section is, “Does the paper meet the expectation set forth in the title”? The overwhelming answer is YES! As a result of the number and quality of all its elements (text formatting, graphics, examples, style) a reader cannot help but full comprehend the key messages in this subject. The white paper exceeds all expectations as set forth in the title, and then some. Rating: 10.

Overall Score: 9.4 out of 10.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 8:05 am and is filed under WP Examples, WP Marketing, WP Opinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.